Saturday, August 23, 2014

Is Paris yearning?

Today, the spot where this happened is marked with a small plaque
bearing the name of Georges Loiseleur, who "died for France". A 19 year
old, Rene Dova, who was killed in the same incident is also remembered.

Across the city there are about 500 of these memorials dating
from the week of fighting exactly 70 years ago, when Parisians won back
their lost honour and threw off the Nazi yoke.

The earliest ones were put up spontaneously by families or
comrades. Later, a law of 1946 set out strict rules about proof of
merit, and about appropriate language.

Thus, while the first plaques use emotional phrases like
"lachement assassine par les Boches" (victim of a cowardly murder by the
Hun), the later formula "Mort pour la France" reflects an official
appropriation of the act of memory.